By DEIRDRE CRIMMINS
Little Marvin is the creative gale force behind Prime Video‘s hit horror series THEM. As both creator and showrunner, Marvin is guiding the series into its second season, THEM: THE SCARE. Set in Los Angeles in 1992, this season looks at the acts of a serial killer in a city in the grip of mounting racial tensions and the stress in the personal lives of the cops on the case. Recently, RUE MORGUE sat down with Little Marvin to talk horror, detectives, and the metaphorical spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.
What about the horror genre specifically speaks to you and makes you want to contribute to it?
What I’ve always loved about horror is that it’s like putting medicine inside of a dessert and tricking people. [laughs] It allows the pill to go down smoother. And I think that you can envelop really weighty themes inside kind of pulse-pounding things. I think that dichotomy has always really interested me. When I think about my favorite horror films of all time, they’ve always managed to sneak subversive and sometimes politically charged – but certainly emotionally and psychologically rich – storytelling inside things that also make you terrified. I think that combination is infinitely exciting.
Absolutely. And you talking about hiding medicine in sweet things sounds like a horror film itself. So, that checks out as well.
You’ve heard it here first. My next thing is about a baker.
Horror’s kissing cousin is the police procedural. There’s been an ongoing debate if Silence of the Lambs is a horror movie or a thriller. In my opinion, it can be both. What made you want to mix these genres?
Yeah, I think we share the exact same feeling about Silence of the Lambs. I can’t think of it any other way. It is a horror thriller to me. There are horrifying things in it. And then there is also a very tight taught procedural happening at the same time.
I wanted to take a forensic look at a series of crimes. I also, at the same time, wanted to take a forensic look at a woman and her family … As much as there’s a sort of a procedural component from a crime perspective, I also like to think of it as a domestic procedural because, as you continue to watch the story, you’re also unpeeling layers about this woman and layers about her family and layers about the killer.
I think that the combination of the domestic and the criminal procedural components is exciting. And then I would also say at the same time, the ’90s, for me, were that era of the serial killer. They were rampant. I don’t care if they were great or if they were terrible; There were lots of terrible ones, too. But I loved them all. I was sort of obsessed with them. Also, at the same time, I was obsessed with the supernatural serial killer thrillers of the ’80s, which had a huge inspiration, I think, on this season as well. Somewhere in there is the marriage of those things.
What scares you?
Oh, wow. What doesn’t? [laughs] That’s a question from my dad. So what scares me? God, that’s deep.
Some people say spiders and some people say failure. Take the question as seriously as you want.
Well, actually, that was my Venn diagram – spiders and failure. Okay. I’m actually deeply terrified of both. I would say failure not so much, perhaps, as not trying – being too scared to move. That terrifies me. I like to keep moving and keep thinking and keep growing. So, I think a fear of not growing and a fear of spiders.
You just described a shark. They’re always moving and growing. To many, that’s their fear. So congratulations!
Happy to get a triple header!
